Sunbreakers, Mandurah

Sunbreakers restaurant has been around for quite some time now in Mandurah, however only recently in its new home across from the old venue on Mandurah Terrace.

The new restaurant looks trendy and stylish with its dimly lit decor and furnishings. Entry is through the hotel into the bar and then into the restaurant. A waitress quickly showed us to the table and told us about the specials before taking our drinks order.

The menu looks great with plenty of selection for everyone. Interestingly, the restaurant prices are more expensive than their website portrays, maybe its time to update their website ??
We shared some sizzling garlic prawns and garlic bread to start. While the prawns were piping hot, they were small and tasteless. I know they look big in the picture, but compare the prawns to the slice of lemon. Garlic bread arrived drizzled with a sweet balsamic vinegar glaze !! A first for me, but sorry it didn’t work. The garlic bread itself was simply grilled french bread with a light spread of garlic butter but lacked any significant flavoring – should have worked but the bread was still doughy and again tasteless.

For mains, my partner inquired about the fish of the day – Imported barramundi from Thailand. Mushy frozen “barramundi”, thanks but no thanks, oh and why is a seaside town restaurant selling frozen fish from Asia when we have an abundance of it here. So instead she ordered the chicken scallopini. Sounds nice, looked average and cooked to death.

In comparison, my main course was really quite simple and when it came out it looked good. Fettuccine funghi – fettuccine with bacon, shallots garlic, bacon and fresh tomato. Surely it cant be that hard. Nowhere on the menu did it says smothered in cheese or I would have asked for “no cheese” please. Barely a handful of mushroom and bacon bits and an abundance of barely cooked onion and garlic that overpowered the whole dish. Maybe a little fresh tomato would have been nice, rather than a rich ragooey type of sauce that encapsulated the entire meal. In the end, I left probably a third of my dinner, as my mouth was left tingling with the taste of barely-cooked shallots and garlic !
Meal for two with 1 beer, $82. Unfortunately from me its gonna be a 2 / 5, a big thumbs down from me !
We’ll try it again, but not in a rush to go back unfortunately.